Hello, and welcome to the Geeky Brummie Film Roundup! Each week we take you through the biggest new cinema releases and why you should be excited for them. This week we have aliens (maybe), whistleblowers, demons and demon slayers…
Usual disclaimer: unless otherwise stated, I haven’t seen these movies yet so all of my opinions are based on trailers, early reviews and other rumours and buzz.
Bugonia
Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things, The Favourite), Bugonia sees Emma Stone’s high-flying executive Michelle kidnapped by Teddy (Jesse Plemons) and Don (Aidan Delbis) – two conspiracy theorists who believe she is an alien queen trying to wipe out humanity by stealing all our bees.
Lanthimos has become known for offbeat, darkly comic cinema, and this looks every bit as barmy as his best work. He has teamed up with Emma Stone several times before, and it’s always been excellent – Stone deservedly won an Oscar for her committed performance in Poor Things, and she’s gone all in again here, allowing the Greek director to shave all her hair off. Even though she’s the victim in this plot, she doesn’t seem to be a particularly likeable character from the trailer, so she should have some fun material to play with. Plemons – another actor who is always worth a trip to the cinema – joined Stone and Lanthimos for last year’s anthology movie Kinds of Kindness and proved that he was a good fit for Lanthimos’s quirky style.
I have very high hopes for this one – I always enjoy Lanthimos’s films, and this is getting some good reviews.
- Bugonia on IMDB
- Bugonia on Rotten Tomatoes
Relay
Relay centres on Ash (Riz Ahmed), who acts as a go-between for corrupt corporations and whistleblowers with damaging information. Following a careful set of rules to retain his anonymity and protect both parties, he arranges for any damning documents to be returned in exchange for lucrative hush money payouts. But one day, he agrees to help Sarah (Lily James) whose life is in imminent danger for what she knows. As his system starts to fall apart, can Ash keep Sarah, and himself, alive?
I haven’t heard too much about this, but it looks like a good, tense, old-fashioned thriller. Riz Ahmed is a great actor and has come a long way since his breakout role in Four Lions, and Lily James is always very watchable too. The corporate aspect gives an unusual twist to the espionage thriller genre as well as making it feel more current and relevant. If you’re a fan of spy movies then this is one for you.
- Relay on IMDB
- Relay on Rotten Tomatoes
Shelby Oaks
Surprisingly the only horror film coming out this Halloween, Shelby Oaks follows Mia (Camille Sullivan) as she hunts for her missing sister Riley (Sarah Durn). Her search takes her to the Shelby Oaks amusement park, and to the possibility that the demon that haunted their nightmares as children might be real, and might be back. It’s been a good year for horror and this looks suitably creepy – as you would expect with Mike Flanagan (the man behind such excellent Netflix horror series as the Haunting of Hill House and Midnight Mass) producing. The director is Chris Stuckmann in his feature film debut – Stuckmann is best known for his film review YouTube channel. The reviews of this film have been mixed, but if you want to be spooked at the cinema this Halloween then this is the film for you.
- Shelby Oaks on IMDB
- Shelby Oaks on Rotten Tomatoes
K-Pop Demon Hunters
Already a huge phenomenon on Netflix, K-Pop Demon Hunters gets a cinema release this weekend. For those who haven’t seen it, the film follows K-pop girl group HUNTR/X – Rumi (Arden Cho), Mira (May Hong) and Zoey (Ji-young Yoo) who, when they’re not filling out arenas, slay demons as they cross into our world. But when the demons try to fight fire with fire by creating their own rival K-pop band and stealing HUNTR/X’s fans (and their souls), can the girls win them back and save the world?
Sony Pictures Animation has established itself as a force to be reckoned with in the animation world recently, with the Spider-verse films and The Mitchells Versus The Machines pushing the art form to huge critical acclaim. KPDH uses a combination of traditional CGI animation and the painterly style pioneered in Spider-Verse to create what amounts to a dazzling hour-and-a-half music video. The songs are catchy, the characters are fun, and the demon tiger thing is one of the most lovable creations you’ll have seen for a long time. This has struck a real chord with younger viewers (expect to see a lot of trick-or-treaters dressed as characters from the film this year) and is already Netflix’s most-watched film. A cinema release feels somewhat unnecessary at this point, but I suspect it might have been to help qualify it for Oscars contention in next year’s awards season. If you haven’t seen it and want to know what all the fuss is about, or if you’re already a fan and just want to see it on a big screen, this will be well worth catching at the cinema.
- K-Pop Demon Hunters on IMDB
- K-Pop Demon Hunters on Rotten Tomatoes
If you only see one film this week…
Bug out on Bugonia
Still in cinemas and worth a watch
- Sketch
- Black Phone 2
- Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc
Trailer of the Week
Having just finished re-watching the first four seasons, I’m picking the first full trailer for the final season of Netflix’s tentpole fantasy drama Stranger Things as Trailer of the Week. This season will pick up where season four left off, with the town of Hawkins reeling from the opening of a rift between our world and the Upside Down. The Hellfire Club are still being blamed for Vecna’s ritualistic killings that allowed him to open the rift, and Max is still recovering in hospital. The stakes, and the budget, have clearly been dialled up even further, with armies of soldiers squaring off against hordes of demigorgons and Eleven’s powers reaching new levels. Will it have a scene as epic as the Running Up That Hill episode in season four? Who will make the now-traditional final episode self-sacrifice? We’ll find out when the first batch of episodes drops in late November, the next over Christmas, and the finale on New Year’s Day…
Leave a Reply